Posts Tagged ‘Sleep Training’

I was recently on my vacation (stay-cation, actually) and we decided to potty train my youngest son. During the summer is a good time to potty train, since they can easily run around with very little clothing. As we were potty training, I started seeing comparisons to sleep training and probably many other things we need to teach our children, so I thought I’d write about it.

With both our boys, we used The 3-Day Potty Training Method by Lora Jensen (no affiliation). Truth be told, neither boy was potty trained in just three days (though my first was done with pee within 3 days), but I can see how some might. Compared to a lot of struggling parents I have read about, it was a very quick method both times, so I do recommend the method and she has a lot of good strategies for common pitfalls.

Below are the 6 ways potty training is like sleep training (and probably MILLIONS of other things we need to teach our children):

Sleep Training and Potty Training take initiative and bravery

The first step is often the hardest to take. The fear of the unknown and how your baby will respond to sleep training or your toddler to potty training is scary and paralyzes us from moving forward. Truth be told, I loved the idea of being diaper-free, but was not looking forward to potty training. It takes awhile until they are truly independent and it was awhile until we felt “free” when our older son was potty trained. This is similar to how it feels never-ending if your baby doesn’t sleep 11-12 hours at night, consistently, right after you sleep train.

There were many days I remember thinking diapers were a bit easier in those early days. But, it’s a step you know you have to take one day and I knew waiting too long only gets them more set in their ways. This is one reason I recommend sleep training sooner rather than later, when you feel your baby is ready, and before they are pulling up, crawling, etc. We potty trained around 2 1/2 years old with both boys and it was a perfect age for them, maybe a little old for my first, actually.

Sleep Training and Potty Training takes confidence

With The 3-Day Potty Training Method you essentially go to underwear, day and night, and not look back. With our first, he was at least waking up dry in the morning, but not our younger. He would even leak his diaper, some days. With our first we were lucky and never had a bed-wetting accident, even at night, but we knew this would probably not be the case this time. And, we were right.

That first night potty training, he wet the bed, but the worst part was he was so awakened and intrigued by us changing the sheets that he was up for 1 1/2 to 2 hours that first night. It was so brutal that the next day we broke one of the method’s “rules” and bought Pull-Ups, the kind that gets cold, to save us from another rough night, but hoped we weren’t undoing the potty training. With the “cold pull-up” he did wake up when he peed in the pull-up, but only did so enough to get out of bed and lay on the floor outside his room (don’t ask me why). We didn’t even know until we went upstairs awhile later and we put underwear on him (my plan was only to use one pull-up a night) and he woke up dry that morning. That was the last day he fully peed the bed since. There was only one other day he started to poop at the end of his nap and that was it. We didn’t have the utmost confidence that he COULD hold it all night, but he really could do it! It really reminded me that you need to have confidence in your baby or toddler’s ability, even though it’s scary and might disrupt your own sleep, temporarily. With sleep training, it’s the same. I can’t tell you how many parents are afraid to take the first step, but then see that just a few days later they have a baby who can sleep!

Sleep Training and Potty Training take being realistic and expecting setbacks

Most people expect accidents during potty training, so it surprises me when they don’t always expect setbacks with sleep. Whenever you learn a new skill, there will be days you do it well and days you seem to be re-learning for the first time. Practice makes perfect and you need to be realistic that your baby might not sleep well every night, no matter what those books say!

Sleep Training and Potty Training take consistency

People preach and preach that “consistency is key” and it’s 100% true. Consistency can come in different forms. For example, since day and night sleep are handled by two different parts of the brain, you can focus on nights first and then worry about days (or vice versa) and still be “consistent”. I find other ways, in a personalized sleep consultation, to remain consistent.

With both potty training and sleep training, consistency is very important. When sleep training, we had to make sure we put our son down before he was asleep or we’d end up back to where we started. When we were potty training him, he pooped in his underwear ONE time and that turned into a habit that lasted a month. With our younger son, this time, we were much better at consistency and he “got it” a lot faster.

Sleep Training and Potty Training take patience

Patience is an important aspect of both sleep training and potty training, too. It’s very often that a baby will have an off-night or struggle with learning a new skill. With potty training, it’s very common for a toddler to have accident after accident while he learns the sensation to look for before he actually goes. It’s a lot messier, but going straight to underwear helps them learn this sensation faster just like actually falling asleep without a pacifier, breastfeeding, bottle, etc. will help your baby learn to sleep faster than having them try and then you put them to sleep.

Sleep Training and Potty Training take encouragement

When your baby or toddler is learning something new, it’s a great idea to give them positive reinforcement and cheer through their successes and be understanding during their failures. It’s the same for both sleep training and potty training. Even though you might not believe your baby can understand everything you say, she can very much understand tone of voice and their level of understanding happens sooner than you think. Talk often to your baby and encourage them, so they can gain confidence in themselves. If she is old enough, consider a sticker chart.

Digression: I find it interesting that it is “okay” to say you are potty training a child, but if you say you are sleep training, people say “they aren’t a dog you train.” In reality, both instances are really teaching your child a skill that takes time, patience, and work to learn. And, just like sleep training, how long it takes to potty train varies by child, where some will get it in a day and others might take months, I’m sure. Digression over.

So, what happened?

My 2 1/2 year old son had numerous accidents that first week, but within just a few days we were down to about one a day. By two weeks he was accident-free both day and night, pee and poop, and sleeping through the night, again! Sure, he has an “oops I thought that was gas and now I have poop in my underwear” moment, but for the most part, we are now done with diapers and loving it!

Comment below on your potty training or sleep training experiences. Did I miss anything?

Sometimes it can feel like you’re in a race. Your friends have babies sleeping through the night and you want one, too. The pressure mounts as your baby gets older while well-meaning friends and family ask the same question every time they see you: “Is she sleeping through the night yet?” You know that if you don’t answer “yes”, you will hear it again: “Just let her cry. Worked for me.” or, in my case, it was: “It’s because you’re breastfeeding.” You might be tempted to say “yes”, even if she isn’t sleeping through the night, just to spare yourself the torment. You feel like all your friends got a hare and you got a tortoise.

As a parent, it’s sometimes hard to have that confidence to know that there is nothing wrong with your baby AND there is nothing wrong with your parenting. All babies are different and just because your neighbor’s baby was sleeping all night at 3 months old doesn’t mean yours can too. And, just because my son can count to 20 (mostly) at two years old doesn’t mean all two year olds can. Just like my four year old can’t really draw a picture of a person, some of his friends can. Where my older son excels in reading and math, he needs to work on his fine motor skills. And, just like your 10 month old might still need a night feeding, some of your 4 month olds don’t.

What makes your baby a tortoise or a hare when it comes to sleep?

In my experience with my clients, there are four main family types:
• Slow to Adapt baby (tortoise) with hares as parents
• Highly adaptable babies (hares) with tortoises as parents
• Slow to Adapt baby (tortoise) with tortoises as parents
• Highly adaptable babies (hares) with hares as parents

What do I mean by this?

First, let me say, there is no judgment here. You are what you are and there is no right or wrong. Second, there is a lot in between a tortoise and a hare. There are fast tortoises and slow hares. Sometimes a baby’s temperament meshes with a parenting style and sometimes it doesn’t. This is to help you see if there is a mismatch or not.

A slow-to-adapt baby is generally going to take longer to learn to self-soothe and sleep well. That is going to be generally be true regardless of chosen sleep training method. Why? Because they get used to a certain routine and they don’t give it up easily. If they are persistent, they will really fight hard to keep status quo.

A highly adaptable baby who can self-soothe, but just hasn’t had the opportunity will generally learn very quickly, regardless of method, too. They go to sleep one time without a bottle or breastfeeding or a pacifier and voila, they figure out how to do it between sleep cycles (that we ALL have) and start sleeping in longer stretches.

A parent who is a hare is usually one who doesn’t have hours upon hours to spend with a baby to help him learn to self-soothe. They might be working parents trying to fit in the various chores that need to be done, get dinner on the table, etc. They might have older kids and just can’t ignore their other kids to spend three hours putting the baby to sleep at night. Or, they might be people who just recognize they just aren’t that patient to spend hours or that their baby missing three hours of sleep is not good for them. Whatever the reason, these are parents who decide that faster is better in the big picture.

A parent who is a tortoise is usually one who feels a slower approach is better for everyone’s sakes. They are okay with taking weeks (or sometimes months) rather than days. They figure it’s been this long, what’s a few more weeks? They have the time and patience to spend with their baby and feel it’s the best way to approach it.

I have been told I have the patience of Job, but one of my current clients has really shown me what patience is. She has a two year old who was nursing all night and we have come a loooong way, using a very slow approach. Her patience has been tremendous and I really admire her. Her son is slow-to-adapt and her patience is paying off with as few tears as possible. Their personalities are really meshing, but this is not always the case, unfortunately.

When you are a tortoise and your baby is a hare, you might spend weeks and months, unnecessarily, working on his sleep because you’re taking the slow approach when your baby might just need the nudge and be left alone. I don’t mean cry it out, necessarily. I have parents literally wait five minutes during night-wakings and their baby just goes back to sleep! They are shocked! They’ve been getting up at night for months, but their baby simply needed to be left alone for a few minutes. By going in, they were only perpetuating the very wake-ups they were trying to get rid of. Their baby is highly adaptable and actually a good self-soother, they just didn’t know it.

When you are a hare and your baby is a tortoise, you might be more apt to take a faster approach, like cry it out, and your baby will likely respond fairly quickly, but have backslides where you need to “redo” it over and over, especially after illness or vacation or just because you start slipping back into old habits (very easy to do with a tortoise). You and your baby will be getting more sleep than ever, but it might be frustrating to have those off nights where you feel like you’re starting all over. Consistency is very important for tortoises, especially.

When you are a tortoise and your baby is a tortoise, you, my friend, are going to work extremely hard, I’m afraid. Slow approaches will be even slower. Remember the mom I mentioned above? She’s been working on her two year old’s sleep for a couple of months, at least. Her patience is definitely paying off, but she’s working REALLY hard. She should get a medal! The beautiful part about her is that she knows this is a slower approach and knows what her expectations should be. She is not expecting to take this slower approach and expecting changes in days. She’s expecting them in weeks and months and that’s okay for her. I nudge her when she needs a nudge to move on to the next step and she checks in to make sure she isn’t stalling out of fear of the next step, but that it’s a good idea.

How do I know if you have a tortoise or a hare?

I typically look for clues in e-mail. You might mention something that seems irrelevant, but it gives me a clue about your baby’s personality. Clues about your personality are in there, too. That’s when I develop a plan that suits both your personalities and sometimes that takes time to figure out when your personalities aren’t meshing (when it comes to sleep! not your relationship with your baby).

I say it all over the site, but make sure you make a sleep training plan that meshes with both your personality and your baby’s temperament. Just like the picture above, you might be able to speed your tortoise to the finish line, but if not, as long as you have appropriate expectations, we will all get there, eventually, just like my son will eventually learn to write his name.

What do you think? Do you have a tortoise or a hare?

Welcome to part 4, the final part, of my Baby Sleep and Breastfeeding Series! If you are just joining us, you might want to start at part 1, where I discuss reasons why breastfeeding moms sometimes struggle with sleep. Today, I’ll go over options for breastfeeding moms when it comes to “sleep training coaching” or as I actually prefer to say “helping your baby learn to fall asleep unassisted” (who really wants to think of “training” your baby?).

How breastfeeding is different than formula-feeding

There are a few things that breastfeeding families should keep in mind when helping their babies learn to sleep unassisted, but in general, I do NOT change my recommendations THAT much from formula-feeding families and here’s why:

• Babies become dependent on bottles and pacifiers just as much as breastfeeding mom. DO NOT wean to try to fix sleep problems. They might not go away.
• Breastfeeding moms need sleep too.

The few things you need to keep in mind about breastfeeding are:

• Breastfeeding is about more than just food. If you are reducing the “touch time” at night because you are currently nursing very frequently at night and wish to change that, make sure you compensate during the day with more breastfeeding and touch time. Babies thrive most on a lot of touch time and by taking away some of that at night, you want to reassure your baby even more during the day.
• You will likely need to feed your baby more often at night and for longer (age-wise) than formula-feeding moms, because breast milk digests faster than formula. This does depend on the baby, too, though. I have seen parents with breastfeeding babies sleeping all night at 8 weeks and other formula-feeding moms still feeding twice at night at 7 months.
• For most, the rewarding feeling and bond are worth the sometimes extra effort. Breastfeeding is not for everyone, but many moms (including me) feel the extra feedings or nursing sessions are worth it.

Sleep Training Options for Breastfeeding Families

To be quite blunt, I don’t know why a line is drawn between breastfeeding and formula-feeding moms when it comes to sleep coaching options. The same options I give to formula-feeding moms I give breastfeeding moms. I *was* a breastfeeding mom and I’ve been there. The guilt you get from reading some of the articles out there is over-whelming. Just because you are breastfeeding does not mean you have to endure endless sleep deprivation and be a human pacifier once it’s longer than is comfortable.

Co-sleeping is a common solution for breastfeeding mothers due to the convenience and for awhile it was a MUST in our house. I was indeed a pacifier and that was not a problem…for awhile. My son simply would NOT take anything else, but looking back, even if he had, I would have just been up 10 times replacing a (real) pacifier, anyway. I get many parents with that problem to this site, too.

No cry sleep coaching methods are the first place to start when you are attempting to help your baby learn to sleep. It is the place I urge all families to start, regardless of where the baby gets his food. Until you know how your baby will react to changes, you really don’t know what is going to work in the long run. Once you see progress or lack of progress, you can modify your plan. The first step is MAKING A PLAN.

What about Cry It Out?

There is a prominent website that has an article saying “Sleep Training is NOT for Breast Feeding Mothers”. My biggest beef with this is the fact that some moms will eventually get this out of that statement:

If you can’t really hack the sleep deprivation, then maybe you shouldn’t breast feed (anymore).

Countless women will wean simply to try to “fix” sleep problems and honestly, that makes me sad. For some families, sleep deprivation will drive you to the unthinkable and when you have certain segments of society giving you an extreme view that you either have to withstand 2-3 years of sleep deprivation or scar your child for life, it becomes an impossible situation. Please just know there is A LOT in between sleep deprivation and don’t-go-in-until-dawn-hard-core-sleep-training-you-will-sleep-or-else. It is not cut and dry and you CAN find a solution for your family.

The first mistake people make is they call any form of helping your baby to learn to self-sooth “sleep training”. I recently had a family whose baby was waking often for a pacifier and I recommended not to use the pacifier anymore and you know what? The mom told me that she thinks her and her husband were more dependent on it than the baby, because their baby started sleeping just fine without it in a few days without much fuss! Sometimes you just have to try to make a change. Success like that, of course, highly depends on the baby’s temperament and how adaptable she is.

Does cry it out cause long-term damage? It is my opinion that it does not. What causes long-term damage is when parents routinely and systematically neglect their child. Relationships are complex and if your baby’s needs are not met day and night, that will surely cause damage. But, when needs turn into wants that affect the entire family’s sleep, it is my opinion that a little crying for a few nights does not cause any lasting harm, breastfeeding or not. I think Kia’s comment on another one of my articles sums it up nicely that we all need to find our own path and to take “studies” on cry it out with a grain of salt. Just be responsible and always remember that you know your own child and situation best.

Share your sleep training while breastfeeding story

This topic “How long to cry it out?” has come up a few times in the last few weeks in one way or another, so I thought I’d talk about it this week. I always preface any discussion about cry it out by making sure that everyone understands that I’m not a “Cry It Out Pusher” and I’m very much NOT an extremist or a hard-core “sleep trainer”. I try to be realistic and just know that all babies are different and all family structures are different and what works for one won’t work for everyone. I even debated Pantley about this very topic, because while I think she has some good ideas, they simply will NOT work for all challenging baby types…at least in time before you go crazy from sleep exhaustion. I also don’t recommend cry it out for long-term co-sleepers, either.

If you are adamantly against cry it out, please do NOT do it! It probably won’t work and you’ll just feel bad about it. At all times in my sleep consultations, I work with parents on helping their baby sleep with as few tears as possible. Why? Because who wants their baby to cry? We all do what we can to limit our baby’s tears and as your sleep consultant, I understand that. My son’s sleep struggles are still very near and dear to my heart and I pretty much relive them every day in every consultation, so I very much remember where you probably are right now.

So, how long do you cry it out if you do choose that path?

First, make sure your baby is at an appropriate age for cry it out, he is no longer swaddled, and if you are feeding baby on a schedule that you have set a realistic schedule. One thing that I can’t emphasize enough is that my philosophy is that some parents might use cry it out to fix sleep problems, but please don’t make your baby go hungry if she still needs night feedings. One thing that really does make my skin crawl is hearing about letting a two month old cry throughout the night to avoid two feedings, which is hardly a “sleep problem.”

Another reason I recommend exhausting all other methods before trying cry it out is that you must be 100% committed to cry it out for it to really work. So, typically, I recommend that you feel like you’ve “tried everything” first. If you let your baby cry for a set length of time and then you “give in”, you have basically set a precedent and he will cry that long (or longer) next time (if there is a next time). Many babies respond well to non-crying methods (highly depends on your baby’s temperament) and only a small percentage of my clients really have to go full blown cry it out, so make sure you’ve truly given it your all on the other methods.

Once you 100% commit to cry it out, there really isn’t a length of time that you really stop, when you’re working on nights (though you want to limit nap time crying). The goal is for your baby to fall asleep without said sleep association and every parent will need to decide what is “too long.” I recommend deciding that before you start, if possible. Having a plan (do you visit or not, how long between visits, do you stay in the room, etc.) is of utmost importance so everyone is on the same page and will stick to it. Once you decide to stop said crutch, it can’t really be an option to change your mind, otherwise, you go backwards and might even make things worse.

Many people against cry it out will paint a picture that cry it out is cruel because a baby can’t communicate what she needs. This is true, to an extent, in that you can’t ignore all your baby’s cries and I would never recommend that. That’s irresponsible parenting. My argument is that if you give your baby a pacifier ten times per night and that’s all she “needs” then you know why she’s crying. Does that mean you give your baby everything just because she cries? Not to me. If it had, my son would not have sat in a car seat for his first year of life. Your baby only thinks she needs a pacifier to sleep because that’s all she’s known. It doesn’t mean she can’t learn a new way to sleep. Enter…the parent.

Down the line, after initial “sleep training” is over, does this mean you never go in to your baby at night? ABSOLUTELY NOT!! We all do pretty crazy things to get our baby to sleep, but when you’re ready to make a change, it’s important to commit to your plan of action. Whether you succeed in finding a no crying sleep method or try cry-it-out, babies are destined to change. Cry it out is NOT a cure-all and it doesn’t mean your baby won’t need you during an illness, when she’s getting new teeth, growth spurt, etc., so it doesn’t mean never go to your baby or use your instincts. It also doesn’t mean that cry it out “didn’t work.” because your baby needs you at night for something.

In my opinion, there is a right and wrong way to approach “sleep training”. If you’re doing cry-it-out, it might take you a few nights or a couple of weeks, but please expect things to pop up and change on you, because they will. Just remember, that cry it out won’t change your baby’s personality, there is no proof that cry it out is harmful, not even by Harvard, it’s not always clear when you’re done sleep training, and being a mom is an every day challenge.

How many days did cry it out take for you and your family?

 

Is it always clear when you are done sleep training? Not for everyone, unfortunately. Success in sleep training, like so many things in our lives, is on a continuum and what is success for you might not be for someone else. It also depends on your expectations and what your goal is from sleep training.

For some parents, sleep training is allowing their baby to fuss a few minutes and voila, they sleep 10-12 hours a night ad nauseum luckily for those parents. For other parents, it won’t be quite as smooth. They might take 2-3 weeks using a no-cry sleep training method and then have a baby who pleasantly sleeps 10-12 hours per night or parents might use cry it out and in 2-3 nights, they are also sleeping through the night.

Still, there are the few of us who don’t fall into either camp. We struggle on and off for the better part of a year 2 years however much time it takes. We get on a path that starts to work and then baby gets sick. We start seeing some improvement and baby gets teeth. Our toddler has a language explosion, starts to walk, or begins to use his imagination and starts to have nightmares, and we fall back once again. We have a new baby and our 2 year old stops napping, but is a mess before bedtime. The setbacks can be numerous.

How do you know when you’re done?

For many, it will be obvious when you are done because you will be well-rested and, most importantly, so will your baby. You may have temporary setbacks, but your baby bounces back to normal quickly. But, what if you’ve done cry-it-out and your baby is still crying every night? What do you do? Does that mean it didn’t work?

As a general rule, if your baby fusses or cries lightly for 5-10 minutes, drifts off to sleep and you don’t hear a peep for 10-12 hours (or just for feedings and they go right back to sleep), you most likely just have a baby who unwinds a little before sleep. When my baby was in a good place, he would often unwind, not so much by crying, but almost moaning or humming himself to sleep. I think it’s possible that a stranger might think he was crying or fussing, but I knew him best and I know he wasn’t crying (we had plenty of experience to know the difference, unfortunately). He would sleep well at night (possibly with a feeding or two, depending on age) and there was a time that I’d go in too early in the morning where he’d be “talking” and would fuss at me for coming in too soon (I would have bet you a million dollars that wouldn’t happen!). Most importantly, he was very happy in the morning with a good night’s rest.

If your baby is crying hard for 10 minutes, then settles down, it’s still possible you are at a point that it’s going to be as good as it gets for the time being. We have been at this stage, too, unfortunately. We went through a time my son would cry hard for 5-10 minutes, we’d go in and re-settle him and he’d go right to sleep. It was a little frustrating, but fairly easy to deal with. Knowing him today, no doubt it was the same reason as now that he just didn’t want the day to end, even though he was exhausted.

If your baby is crying hard for over 10 minutes (I am generalizing — you know your baby best) and it’s been longer than a week of sleep training, most likely you have a lingering problem. In babies, this problem is probably over-tiredness and you need to bump bedtime EARLIER. Even after sleep training, my son would get over-tired and over-stimulated and cry and cry at bedtime some nights “for no reason”. He was fed, dry, etc. and was just T-I-R-E-D! It was very very frustrating. We couldn’t really soothe him all the way to sleep every time (though we’d go down that road, too) because that led to our 3 hour rocking marathons every. single. time. or worse, waking every so many hours for re-rocking / re-soothing. We were still basically at the best place we could be at the present time. We tried with everything we had to keep bedtime early enough. Even now, he will get cranky when he’s tired, but insists “I’m not tired!” and then promptly falls asleep 5 minutes later, literally.

For toddlers, crying at bedtime or resisting a bedtime could be over or under-tired, depending on the toddler’s schedule and temperament. Unfortunately, without knowing the specific details, it’s difficult to know which one it is. In general, if your toddler was going to bed fine and all of a sudden started fighting the routine, you might consider she needs longer wake-time before bedtime. If she recently transitioned naps, you might need to consider less.

There are many times you might have setbacks, but in general, if things haven’t improved in 2-3 weeks, regardless of the method (closer to 2 for crying methods and 3-4 for no-cry), you might want to re-evaluate your chosen method to get your baby or toddler to sleep.

How did you know when you were done?

Welcome to Part 3 of my Baby Temperament and Sleep Series. If you are just joining us, you may want to start with Part 1, where I define baby temperament. In part 2, I discussed baby temperament trait, intensity, and today I will move on to the next trait, persistence. At the end of the series, I will give you a quiz to determine your child’s temperament.

 
 
 

Baby Temperament – Persistence

Your baby’s persistence is how easily or difficult she can stop a task if you tell her to and how strong-willed they are when they get their mind set on something. Persistence might reveal itself when you take your 8 month old’s toy away from him to start a new game or your 2 year old who needs to get out of the bath and isn’t ready. Or, you might even see it as early as 4 months old when she wants to nurse and he won’t take no for an answer without erupting in tears and will not settle down with any other soothing method. A very persistent baby or toddler doesn’t take “no” for an answer very easily.

I have personally seen my eldest son’s persistence from very early on and it hasn’t let up in his 3 years. When your child is persistent, they really “lock in” to an idea or desire and will not let up easily. I can share a few examples. When my son was a baby, he would “lock in” and get upset when we took a toy away. When he was a little older, taking away the bottle (around 15 months) proved difficult and rather than drink from a sippy, he’d wait it out without milk until his next feeding (we worked on one feeding at a time). We saw his first tantrum not getting what he wanted very early, around 15-16 months, too, and there have been numerous times we’ve been driving somewhere, we didn’t go the way he wanted, and we heard about it ALLLLLL the rest of the way home. As soon as you think he’s forgotten about what he wanted, he will keep harping on it. Sometimes distraction works, but often it doesn’t. Happiest Toddler on the Block has good information about dealing with toddlers in this way (or watch the DVD).

I have purposely kept from using the word “stubborn” to describe this temperament trait. Stubborn has a negative connotation and will only frustrate you if you have a persistent child. Remember that your child is not purposely doing this to drive you crazy (even though there have been numerous times I thought I was headed that way). This is their in-born personality. A persistent child will require you to have more patience and set firm limits. You also have to pick your battles, in my opinion, but giving in to every demand of a persistent child simply to avoid their will, is not a good idea. I suspect many “spoiled” kids are very persistent and I can certainly understand how it “feels” easier to just give them what they want. Combine intensity with persistence (think 30 minutes with a screaming toddler when he wants something) like my eldest son and it can be VERY tiring, but we press on to make sure he has reasonable limits and can grow into a child who won’t expect to always get what he wants. It is my goal to help direct him to be persistent at appropriate times.

As I said last time, there are good and bad things about each temperament trait. The photo I chose for this article is not an accident. Without persistence, it can be difficult to reach the highest mountains and achieve successes in life. There are a number of jobs / careers that need a persistent nature, some more than others. In a job where you might be told no a lot, such as an actor or actress, a less persistent person is not as likely to achieve their dream. Becoming a doctor, lawyer, Fortune 500 CEO, etc. take a lot of persistence, too.

Baby Sleep and Persistence

How might your baby’s persistence affect her sleep? If your child is a less persistent baby, this means that it will not likely be that difficult to get better sleep out of her. Typically, less persistent babies and toddlers accept no for an answer and do not stay upset very long when you make changes. You may simply just need to commit to making changes. If you decide to sleep train with a no-cry sleep training method, your baby will not likely complain very long and quickly take no for an answer when you refuse to continue to replace the pacifier or nurse to sleep or discontinue any other sleep association. Once she is 4 months old if you decide to sleep train using a crying sleep training method, your baby will likely not cry very long, if at all.

On the other hand, if your baby is a very persistent baby, you can bet that it will be harder to get more cooperation out of him when he has his mind set on something. If you use a no-cry sleep training method, it will likely take you longer than those with less persistent babies. It might take you a month or two of consistency to really make a lot of progress and it will take a lot of patience and wherewithal on your part. If you decide to use a crying sleep training method, you can expect long crying bouts, unfortunately. Depending on his intensity level, this may or may not be difficult to get through. If he is low-intensity and fusses for an hour, that might be “easier” than if he is screaming at the top of his lungs for an hour. Regardless of the method, your key to success will be to be more persistent than he is. Luckily for me, I am a very persistent, too (gee where did my son get it? Ha!). You might also notice that you need to keep setting firm limits during bedtime routines as he gets older and wants “one more book”, “one more drink” or “one more” anything.

As you can imagine, since it did prompt me to make a whole website about this, my son’s persistence was prominent throughout our whole endeavor to get better sleep out of him. Not only that, but we fell backwards many times after illnesses, vacations, and teething.

As always, there is a wide spectrum in persistence levels. Once you know your baby’s temperament, intensity level, and persistence level, you can take it into consideration when you choose how to help her get more sleep. You may or may not want to use cry it out to help your baby sleep, but once you know your baby’s personality, that can help you come up with a plan.

For more ideas on how to guide your child’s persistence (i.e. help her learn appropriate times to be persistent), I recommend Raising Your Spirited Child.

Explore each of the 9 temperament traits, Intensity, Persistence, Sensitivity, Perceptiveness, Adaptability, Regularity, Energy, First Reaction, and Mood, focusing on how they play a role in your baby’s sleep and in the final part, take an assessment quiz to help figure out you and your baby or toddler’s temperament and see how it might be similar or different.

Share how your child is or isn’t persistent

Welcome to Part 2 of my Baby Temperament and Sleep Series. If you are just joining us, you may want to read Part 1, What is baby temperament? Today we start talking about the nine different temperamental traits. At the end of the series, I will give you a quiz to determine your child’s temperament.

Baby Temperament – Intensity

Your baby or toddler’s intensity is how strongly he emotionally reacts to something. This could be in a good way or a bad way. Because high-intensity babies react strongly, that means they can be squealing loudly with joy or crying loudly because they are wet. There are babies who barely squeak when they are “crying” and then there are those who scream like you are chopping their arm off. I have a LOT of experience with the screaming kind, unfortunately. Both my boys were (and still are) screamers and what I would call high-intensity (my first more than my second…so far).

Many people will tell new parents to “put your baby down before he is asleep from birth” and you won’t have any sleep problems. Now, if you have the squeaker, this might be really good advice and I certainly encourage new parents to at least try it. But, if you have a screamer, that just isn’t realistic and frustrates those of us that simply can’t take this advice. I am sure there are many parents who simply feel like I made a mistake not doing this from birth, but we all must realize our babies all do not react the same and most new parents aren’t going to let their newborn scream for even 2 minutes from birth! I know I wasn’t willing to.

From birth, both my boys reacted very strongly to things they were upset about whether it was being hungry or too hot (my first son screamed in the car because the car seat would heat him up too much and we’d have a jacket on him because it was winter, until we learned better), tired (especially tired!), over-stimulated, etc. When my son was about 2 1/2 I finally learned where “don’t cry over spilled milk” came from because when he’d spill his milk when he was learning to drink from a cup, he’d start screaming! I finally had to use that saying and really mean it! Ha!

It is not all bad to have a highly intense child. It’s loads of fun when we’re having fun, for one thing. But, another positive spin to your high-intensity child is that you know how he feels. There is no guessing. In that light, I find that I am very in tune to his mood and I feel good when he is happy. He is enthusiastic and full of energy. Not saying that low intensity children are not happy (I’m sure many of them are!), but I can see that more laid back children may not be happy about something, but never speak up, too. Even my second, being the less intense one, tends to need to wait on things because my more intense child is a “squeakier wheel”. I feel bad about that and try to be as fair as I can.

With any of these temperamental traits I will review, there are good things and bad things about all of them. As parents of a high-intensity child, we can learn how to help our child react strongly at appropriate times and learn how to help him diffuse his strong reaction other times.

Baby Sleep and Intensity

How might your baby’s intensity affect her sleep? If your child is a low intensity baby, this means that it may really be much easier for you to put baby down DROWSY, BUT AWAKE from the very beginning and help her learn to fall asleep on her own from day one. Your baby may fuss a little or not at all before drifting off into dreamland. When your baby is no longer a newborn and decides to protest things she doesn’t like, her protests will likely be fairly low-key. If you decide to sleep train with a no-cry sleep training method, you will probably find it easier to not give in to a little fussing. If you decide to sleep train using a crying sleep training method, you may not have a hard time listening to a little fussing while you do the dishes or keep yourself occupied.

On the other hand, if your baby is a high intensity baby, you can bet that it will be hard to leave him upset for anything longer than a couple of minutes when he’s young. If he is like my babies, you won’t need to turn on your monitor at night to hear him down the hall when he wakes up for his midnight feeding when he’s 4 months old. Your high-intense baby might get more upset / angry when he wakes up between sleep cycles and can’t go back to sleep, like mine. You may also need to take longer during your bedtime routine to help soothe him before sleep. If you use a no-cry sleep training method, you will likely have a very hard time listening to a screaming baby while you try to break habits and it will be a lot harder to stick to it if/when he gets upset. If you decide to use a crying sleep training method, you can expect loud outbursts and screaming, which will be difficult. You may be a parent who needs to go take a shower to “get away” for a few minutes.

As always, there is a wide spectrum in between low-intensity and high-intensity and we would all probably have a different opinion about what is low and what is high. Once you know your baby’s temperament and intensity level, you can take it into consideration when you choose how to help her get more sleep. You may or may not want to use cry it out to help your baby sleep, but once you know your baby’s personality, that can help us come up with a plan.

Something else to keep in mind is that YOUR intensity can affect your baby’s, too. If you get really upset about something, your baby might follow suit, depending on how sensitive she is. Both my husband and I are pretty intense, but mostly just happy (and neither of us have a hot temper), so we are working hard in directing my son’s intensity in the positive direction, too, and showing him many things aren’t worth getting upset about and it’s working. The other day I spilled my drink at dinner and I got a little upset and he said to me “It’s okay. It’s okay.” and I said back “Thank you for reminding me it’s ok. We’ll just clean it up. No reason to be upset.” It didn’t stop him from getting upset 10 minutes later when he, too, spilled his milk (we were both tired and clumsy that day!) and I politely reminded him back. Together, we can help diffuse each other’s upsets in life. Thankfully, he is a happy child…when he’s getting enough sleep.

Explore each of the 9 temperament traits, Intensity, Persistence, Sensitivity, Perceptiveness, Adaptability, Regularity, Energy, First Reaction, and Mood, focusing on how they play a role in your baby’s sleep and in the final part, take an assessment quiz to help figure out you and your baby or toddler’s temperament and see how it might be similar or different.

Is your child low or high-intensity? Share your story.

This is Part 1 of my Baby Temperament and Sleep Series. This series is about your baby’s temperament and how it might affect his sleep and/or how you solve sleep problems.

Across this website, I mention temperament a lot and how it DOES affect what sleep training method you might choose to help him sleep better. His temperament and personality will drive whether a no-cry method will take 1 hour or 3 months or, if you choose a cry-method, whether he will cry for 5 minutes or 2 hours, if you let him. It may also affect how difficult it is to wean him from breastfeeding, wean him from the bottle to a cup, how many errands you can run on a Saturday, how many tantrums he has as a toddler, and many many other things parents face on a daily basis. Just a reminder, I am not a doctor, so this is based on my reading / research about Temperament and how I believe it affects your baby’s sleep and what methods may or may not work well when it comes to sleep training. Remember sleep training is not cry-it-out! Let’s get started!

What is temperament?

I happened to get my definition of temperament from the book, Raising Your Spirited Child. The author uses the terms coined by Drs. Stella Chase and Alexander Thomas, “because of their positive, parent-friendly approach”. Even if your child is not spirited, the temperament traits will apply to all babies. At the end of this series, I will give you a quiz to find out whether your child is spirited or not and what his or her temperament is.

Temperament is how your child naturally reacts to situations and stimuli, her mood, her ability to calm herself and how active she is. It is said that researchers have found that temperament is biological, meaning your child comes out of the womb this way. This means that from day 1, the way a YOUR baby reacts to being wet, hungry, tired, etc. may not be like your friend’s baby. Yours might be low-key and not get very upset or your baby may scream loudly. You are not making it up that your baby might not be “laid back”. You might wonder what you did or didn’t do to cause this. I remember one parent saying her husband thought her post partum depression after the birth of their son caused their baby to not sleep well. What a burden to bear! Let me assure you, I did not have post partum depression, was not depressed during pregnancy, or anything close to that and my son had a lot of sleep problems! You have no control over your baby’s temperament. You can only “blame” your genetics and they are still figuring out how it is all intertwined.

One thing that is important for you to know, though, is that you can get to know your child’s temperament and be able to predict how he will react to certain things and you can set him up for success. If you know your child has trouble with transitions, for example, you will be able to help him with those (I will get more into that throughout the series). The best part of this is that you can reduce some of the stress once you KNOW your child’s temperament because you won’t constantly be trying to figure out why he is reacting a certain way. Most of all, you should know that just because he is born this way does not mean that what you do does not matter. You will be able to emphasize his strengths, help him understand his own temperament, and help him learn how to handle his own reactions as he grows up. As Raising Your Spirited Child states, “By adapting your parenting techniques to fit his temperament and his style, and teaching him the skills he needs, you help him to live cooperatively with others and to be all that he can be.” To attempt to make him ignore his temperamental traits is not only very difficult, it teaches him to not be himself.

In the next 10 parts of the series, I will review each of the 9 traits of temperament, Intensity, Persistence, Sensitivity, Perceptiveness, Adaptability, Regularity, Energy, First Reaction, and Mood, discussing baby sleep along the way and in the final part, take an assessment quiz to help figure out you and your baby or toddler’s temperament and see how it might be similar or different.

Babies can begin to teethe as early as just a few months old, but it might take awhile before the actual tooth even appears. Some babies never show many signs of teething apart from drooling and chewing on everything while others will get fussy and cranky as the tooth is popping through. Some babies will sleep through it all while others will have numerous night wakings. Some experts have said it will not disrupt sleep, but I wholeheartedly disagree. As everything else, all babies are different and they will all have different pain tolerances. I know that my son did seem to be affected and since none of us can go back and know what it feels like, I believe it’s our job, as parents, to be sympathetic, while also making sure they get enough sleep.

Here are my tips for handling teething and your baby’s sleep:

• If baby is extra fussy during the day when he’s awake (i.e. he is not fussy because he is sleepy), make sure you make him extra comfortable at bedtime with a dose of Motrin or Tylenol or teething tablets and possibly, Orajel. Note: My pediatrician did not OK Motrin until 6 months old. I prefer Motrin because it lasts longer (6 hours) than Tylenol (4 hours), but you should check with your pediatrician about when you can give it.
• Given a baby teethes for what feels like a constant 2 years, you should figure out a plan for how you will handle it because you can’t allow too much sleep deprivation in the name of “teething”, since you may think something is a teething problem, but it’s really a sleep problem.

  My plan with my first son was that if he was extra fussy during the day, I’d give him Motrin and Orajel at bedtime. If he had any night wakings 6+ hours (give or take 1 hour) after the medication, I’d tend to him with another dose and then stay with him for 30 minutes until it kicked in and then put him back down. It was usually only about 2-4 days of super fussy times that he needed extra soothing until the tooth popped through. Other times, I’d have to be more stringent on my nighttime visits, because of the problems it would create.

• If you are nursing, expect baby to possibly nurse more frequently as it feels good on their gums. As always, you may have to set limits and be careful not to create a sleep association with nursing to sleep.

Should You Stop Sleep Training During Teething?

In general, my answer will be no. If you waited for all your baby’s teeth to pop through before you sleep train, you might wait over 2 years! Some baby’s teeth pop through at a few months old but others don’t until past a year old! Since you have no way of knowing, you need to just do your best and make sure you prioritize your baby’s sleep. Having said that, you may need to alter your plan a bit, as I suggested above, during the few days the teeth are about to erupt through the gums (you might notice them right on the surface of the gums and your baby is extra fussy), but otherwise, help them feel comfortable, but continue to be consistent and help them learn to sleep better.

Do you have any teething tips?

I breastfed my first son for 13 months and am still breastfeeding my second (he’s now 5 1/2 months as I’m writing this). As I’ve said before, we also used a crying sleep training method with my first and a no-cry sleep training method for my second (so far). They are just two very different temperaments.

Although I used a crying sleep training method for my first son, I was pretty turned off by an article I read that promoted crying it out to wean breastfeeding. Part of my philosophy is that we all must find a method of sleep training that works for our families.

Another part of my philosophy is that you need to be fair to your child. For example, I never recommend cry-it-out to families who have been co-sleeping for a lengthy amount of time. I believe you need to start slower. With my son, I made sure he could fall asleep unassisted before I expected him to do it alone. Some babies have more trouble self-soothing than others. Once my son knew how to fall asleep, it was more of a matter for us to set limits that he had to do it daily, without our “help” only because our “help” turned into a 3 hour marathon event.

Back to that article. She mentions going on a vacation, separating from baby abruptly, for a week or more and another method is to sabotage your breast milk so it doesn’t taste good. Her final method is to let your baby cry and increase the time before you nurse until you work your way up to letting your baby “cry itself out”. First of all, my baby is not an “it”.

Second of all, there is another method (and there are others!) that worked well for me and that is the “Don’t offer, don’t refuse” method. I had plenty of time, so I could take my time and we took 2 months to wean. Even going slow, my son showed signs of weaning too fast, so I can’t imagine if I had used any of the methods outlined in the article I read!

Granted, had my son taken “too long” (whatever that means to each of us) to wean, I do understand that sometimes you do have to set limits and yes, they might cry, but just like sleep training, there is a range of things you can try before you jump to cry-it-out. I was completely turned off that the article seemed to only list extreme methods. At least give a variety of methods like I have on this site about sleep training with my sleep training series, ya know?

I know this post isn’t really about sleep, per se, but when I read the article and it mentioned “cry it out” for weaning, I felt compelled to write. Cry it out gets such a bad rap, sometimes, and this doesn’t help. What I want to emphasize is that you let your baby cry-it-out to fix sleep problems, but only after your baby is fed, dry, comfortable, and any other needs are attended to. A baby’s cry is protesting the changes you are making when you are breaking sleep associations and other habits. But, breastfeeding is about more than just a mother’s milk as it’s a source of comfort and a connection between mom and baby, too. Even when you sleep train, you can (and should) breastfeed or bottle feed your baby. The idea is just not to do it until baby is all the way asleep. Easier said than done, unfortunately.

I hope this article lets you get to know me and my philosophy better. You may also want to read more about my definition of cry it out and at what age I recommend it. For more weaning techniques, please visit Kelly Mom. You can also visit BabbleSoft for breastfeeding support.

What do you think about cry-it-out to wean?